Sure but were they better? I'm talking about games or even seasons in which Pep has been an underdog at any point. He has never had anything except the deck tipped in his favour. I think he's a genius of the highest order but his success is not yet comparable to that of other greats because he hasn't once done something he wasn't already expected to do.
'Pep' Guardiola sack watch
- Thread starter Classical Mechanic
- Start date
You’ve really proved me wrong with opinions there. They’re always better than actual, tangible facts. I mean seriously, look at the picture of the person who wrote that first article. You want me to take his opinion as gospel?
Your last article was Gordon McQueen accepting that fact on Alex Ferguson’s behalf. Do you who has said Pep would be a failure if he didn’t win the Champions League at City? Pep.
https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www....hampions-league-win/59qe9mg3ol6m1o0ycmzvadq5z
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How much was the Lyon squad that put City out last season?
Not once has anybody said it’s solely about money. That’s an argument you’ve created to get yourself angry about a man that walked out on your club 9 years ago because he couldn’t hack the pressure of maintaining success.
Nah but I remember we weren't buying good players for a while just looking for bargains. Pep has multiple players who are top 50 transfers of all time (7) and that excludes John Stones. I imagine it would rise to 10 if you went to top 60. Obviously Fergie had some flop seasons for sure but the expectation is higher when you have oil money, break financial fair play (cheat), have the most expensively assembled defence, and have the most expensive bench, don't have to sell your best player to real Madrid, offshore accounts to pay staff (Mancini). Basically the perfect position for a manager. It's not about losing one final but that no success in the CL for 5 years and 3 years. What more does one need?
Is that much different from coaching one of the biggest clubs in Europe for 20 seasons and winning 2 titles? Pep worst seasons in the CL he lost 2nd round to Monaco 2017, Fergie lost the quarter-final to Monaco 1997, In addition, Ferguson crashed out of group stages twice to Basel Villareal, Benfica, Lille Galati
If these European failures did not take away from the almost unanimous acclaim of Ferguson European greatness at Man utd, why do you think it does to Pep in Europe?.
There is a little matter of Ferguson losing 2 finals to the same guy
As a continental watcher, When Ferguson was active, I felt he was not deserving of the hype based on his European records given his records vs some of Europes best coaches And saw him as an excellent domestic coach. For example, Ferguson lost home and away twice to Hitzfeld(Dortmund 1997and Bayern 2001) and won 1 time(1999 finals won in the final seconds) a 4-1 head to head, after he retired I gave him more slack.
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We underperformed but if you check the spending in the 90s we weren't even top 3 in England. We regularly had average players like Oshea Miller Fletcher (early days) May Silvestre Cleverley Anderson Park Smith.....The list goes on. We had some suspect squads. Never what Pep had as we didn't break the bank in the 90s.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/f...-Champions-League-trophy-Manchester-City.html
Stacking teams is a recent thing where you need 11 world class players, In those days where everyone in Europe had a foreigner limit, Since you are only allowed 3 foreigners, you have to load it with the best local talents you can find. Almost every team Ferguson faced had their own Oshea, Millers and Fletchers. Even the great Madrid Galacticos ran a policy of the "Zidanes and Pavons"
By 2008, Man Utd had a stacked team comparable with any team in Europe. In your starting 11 in Moscow, only Brown can be said to be average
Ferguson played within the rule of his time, he evolved when the rules changed and Pep played with the rules of his time
Its the recent stacking of teams that created Superteams and led to the huge gap between the haves and have nots aka creating the ESL .
McQueen said the following:
”You will get a big debate among United fans over what is the more important – winning the league or the Champions League – but there is no doubt in my mind that Sir Alex's priority is the Champions League.
"He often talks about how they have underachieved in the Champions League and he is right because they should have won it at least four times under him.”
Are you calling McQueen a liar now? I mean at some point you just have to accept the truth without making excuses. It’s OK, he’s still a great manager.
Re Pep winning it with City? I guess it’s fortunate that he’s only been there for 5 years and has plenty more time to achieve that goal. I mean if Fergie gets 2 decades of bites at the cherry, it’s only fair that Guardiola should as well. If he ends up with four or five, it will be an amazing achievement no matter how much money he has spent.
The foreigners rules were hasher on us I recall. England were not the best bunch in the 90s. The stacked teams nowadays is a bit like the NBA
I’m saying it came from McQueen. Which it did.
Add those five years at City to the three at Bayern. That’s 8. The longest Fergie went without winning it was 8 seasons. Add his last year at Barcelona and he’s already gone longer without winning one.
How often do you think United had the best team in Europe? For Alex Ferguson to have under achieved significantly it must have been a lot of years.
Actually, you said it’s solely about money in fairness. You stated that money is the reason Fergie only has 2 titles. As if he was managing Derby County and not one of the biggest clubs in the world.
Actually, I didn’t in fairness. I said that having the most money makes it considerably easier and if Fergie could’ve matched the spending of City or Real Madrid he would’ve won more. Learn to read.
Funny you mention managing smaller clubs. Fergie did that. To great success. We’ll see if Pep ever does likewise.
Hilarious. I get that it’s difficult for you to accept this though. How about his biggest regret in football being his failure to make the CL final in 2002 at Hampden v Real Madrid when they were knocked out by the big spending Bayer Leverkusen in the semis?
https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp....son-regret-manchester-united-bayer-leverkusen
Probably because he won 2 in 3 years right at the start, the kind of dominance that eluded SAF in his career
Well obviously, the years around the treble win and the (league and CL) double win is when they had their best teams. They should have won at least one more during these periods and Fergie will tell you that himself.
To be dominant in Europe only requires a back to back (like Milan in the late 80s) or a 2 in 3 years (like Madrid in the early 00s or Pep’s Barca). That’s literally all that’s required because it’s so competitive. Also it helps if you have an attractive, decisive win in a final to put the ‘we’re the best team in Europe’ stamp on it. United didn’t do that either.
He could have won more. Like three? Which is exactly the number that Real Madrid won during Fergie’s tenure. What a massive advantage they must have had to win exactly one more than Fergie did, whilst he was helping them out by losing to the likes of Basel and Sevilla every other year.
So many clueless posts which lacks all the context and how things are/were 
The whole account is dedicated to defend Pep, shit on ManUtd or ManUtd related, supports some random shit team. What are the odds
When should they have won more though? Possibly around 2000. Maybe 2007 or 2009. I’ve already said we could’ve won more. What I’m arguing against is the idea he had the opportunities to win it that Guardiola has had. None of the shite you’ve spouted changes that. You can’t even acknowledge how far off the mark you were regarding spending power.
I’m at a loss as to how winning it at the start of his career has made it harder for him since.
Real Madrid won more despite having managers barely fit to set Ferguson’s stopwatch. That doesn’t back up your point. It backs up mine. I won’t be responding to you any further. You’ve been shown up for what you are.
He has greatly influenced the way the game is played, which is something a great majority of those greats haven't done or didn't do. For that reason along with everything he's won, he's already surpassed them.
I’ll take my victory with good grace thanks. I haven’t been shown up as anything except someone who has demonstrated to you that SAF was widely perceived as having underachieved in Europe whilst he was managing, and the reason wasn’t lack of money. It’s important to have perspective in these matters. Now that he’s retired, his European failures seem less important in the grand scheme of things because that’s how looking at a career (or a life) in retrospect works.
Also, Del Bosque, Cappello, Mourinho, Heynckes, Camacho, Hiddink, Pellegrini and Ramos aren’t ‘fit to set Fergie’s stopwatch’? Oy. Maybe it’s best that you’re bowing out now. A bit too blinkered, I would respectfully submit.
That will be Johan Cruyff you’re thinking about.
Nope and you know it, even though Pep was influenced by Cruyff and Bielsa.
Possession football when talked about today (since 2008) is automatically associated with Pep first and foremost, you may not agree and like it, but it is what it is.
Wrong again, I’m afraid. Guardiola has obviously had a significant impact on the way the game is played, to argue otherwise would be ridiculous. But of course he has predecessors. But then so does Cruyff. Before him there was Michels. Before Michels there was Santos. Before Santos there was Hungary. Before Hungary there was the River Plate side. Before them there was the Austrian Wunderteam. And before them there was….Jimmy Hogan from Burnley. Yes, an Englishman created total football, pass it on….
By people too young to know better perhaps. Dutch managers were doing it for years.
Is this discussion for real?
There’s no way he’s surpassed Alex Ferguson. I’ve just watched his documentary “Never Give In”. If someone can watch that and tell me with a straight face they think Pep is the better manager, I’ll be absolutely amazed.
Did he really underachieve in Europe though? He reached 6 European finals. One with Aberdeen, beating Bayern and Real Madrid on the way. He beat Barcelona in 91 when English clubs had been banned from Europe for years. That Barcelona team went on to win the European cup the next season.
Watched it the other night. What he did with that Aberdeen side alone has eclipsed what Pep has ever done, or is ever likely to do.
In the Champions League you’d have to say yes, and he’s said so himself.
If you take in the entirety of his career and all the other UEFA competitions (CWC, EL, Super Cups etc) then he has the joint most trophies in history along with Carlo Ancelotti and Giovanni Trapattoni. So it’s actually a much better return than it initially seems. My point was that when he was active, people criticised him for the perceived failures in the CL.
Exactly. He broke the old firm dominance when the Scottish league was good and won a European trophy beating Munich and Madrid. It's insulting to compare him to Pep. Sir Alex built clubs from the ground up, Pep is the complete opposite.
They should just sack him. I mean, even we wouldn't have so patience.
Couldn’t agree more. As I say pep is a genius when it comes to football. Alex Ferguson transcends that, he’s a leader of men. If he told me to go to war tomorrow I’d probably join the red army.
Has this turned into SAF vs Pep battle? In my lifetime they are probably the two best managers in the PL. I think only Mourinho and Wenger comes close. I guess you can say Anchelotti, but he won things outside PL mostly.
Overall it is hard to judge Pep before he is done, but in terms of building a squad etc SAF is at another level. In terms of coaching and dominating games Pep is the better manager.
Overall it is hard to judge Pep before he is done, but in terms of building a squad etc SAF is at another level. In terms of coaching and dominating games Pep is the better manager.
Very simple counter argument to that is since when did Pep take on a team that was where United where when SAF did? City are among the favourites/outright favourites since he joined in the CL - the fact they have been knocked out by weak teams is mainly on Pep's weird tinkering. How many years, if ever now I think about it, were United actually outright favourites in the CL? Serie A was incredible in SAF's early years, Bayern were always around and then La Liga dominated, there was a period where we were excellent (3 finals in 4 years) but no manager in history ever had the platform Pep has now.
If it makes you feel any better, Fergie is the better manager but Pep is definitely the better coach.
Pep has influenced the way the game is played to an extent, we can't say the same about Fergie.
true.
City became the bookies favourite almost every year in the CL after Pep joined them, it wasn't the case before that.
The dutch even Cruyff style and peps haven't as much in common as you think. Not even remotely, other than fluid movement and comfort on the ball.
Man United’s positions in the four years immediately prior to Fergie taking over, under his predecessor Atkinson: 3rd, 3rd, 4th, 4th.
Also, throw in 2 FA Cup wins, when that trophy actually meant something.